Warwick Woodlands Part 15

"Hear! hear!" cried Frank, "the chap is eloquent!"

"It was the middle of the winter 1832--which was, as you will recollect, of most unusual severity--that I had gone up to Tom Draw's, with a view merely to quail shooting, though I had taken up, as usual, my rifle, hoping perhaps to get a chance shot at a deer. The very first night I arrived, the old bar-room was full of farmers, talking all very eagerly about the ravages which had been wrought among their flocks by a small pack of wolves, five or six, as they said, in number, headed by an old gaunt famished brute, which had for many years been known through the whole region, by the loss of one hind foot, which had been cut off in a steel trap.

"More than a hundred sheep had been destroyed during the winter, and several calves beside; and what had stirred especially the bile of the good yeomen, was that, with more than customary boldness, they had the previous night made a descent into the precincts of the village, and carried off a fat wether of Tom Draw's.

"A slight fall of snow had taken place the morning I arrived, and, this suggesting to Tom's mind a possibility of hunting up the felons, a party had gone out and tracked them to a small swamp on the Bellevale Mountain, wherein they had undoubtedly made their head-quarters.

Arrangements had been made on all sides--forty or fifty stout and active men were mustered, well armed, though variously, with muskets, ducking-guns and rifles--some fifteen couple of strong hounds, of every height and color, were collected--some twenty horses saddled and bridled, and twice as many sleighs were ready; with provisions, ammunition, liquor and blankets, all prepared for a week's bivouac. The plan prescribed was in the first place to surround the swamp, as silently as possible, with all our forces, and then to force the pack out so as to face our volley. This, should the method be successful, would finish the whole hunt at once; but should the three-legged savage succeed in making his escape, we were to hunt him by relays, bivouacking upon the ground wherever night should find us, and taking up the chase again upon the following morning, until continual fatigue should wear out the fierce brute. I had two horses with me, and Tim Matlock; so I made up my mind at once, got a light one-horse sleigh up in the village, rigged it with all my bear-skins, good store of whiskey, eatables, and so forth, saddled the gray with my best Somerset, holsters and surcingle attached, and made one of the party on the instant.

"Before daylight we started, a dozen mounted men leading the way, with the intent to get quite round the ridge, and cut off the retreat of these most wily beasts of prey, before the coming of the rear-guard should alarm them--and the remainder of the party, sleighing it merrily along, with all the hounds attached to them. The dawn was yet in its first gray dimness when we got into line along the little ridge which bounds that small dense brake on the northeastern side--upon the southern side the hill rose almost inaccessibly in a succession of short limestone ledges--westward the open woods, through which the hounds and footmen were approaching, sloped down in a long easy fall, into the deep secluded basin, filled with the densest and most th.o.r.n.y coverts, and in the summer time waist deep in water, and almost inaccessible, though now floored with a sheet of solid ice, firm as the rocks around it--due northward was an open field, dividing the wolf-dingle from the mountain road by which we always travel.

"Our plot had been well laid, and thus far had succeeded. I, with eleven hors.e.m.e.n, drawn up in easy pistol shot one of the other, had taken our ground in perfect silence; and, as we readily discovered, by the untrodden surface of the snow, our enemies were as yet undisturbed. My station was the extreme left of our line, as we faced westward, close to the first ridge of the southern hill; and there I sat in mute expectancy, my holsters thrown wide open, my Kuchenreuters loaded and c.o.c.ked, and my good ounce-ball rifle lying prepared within the hollow of my arm.

"Within a short half hour I saw the second party, captained by our friend Garry, coming up one by one, and forming silently and promptly upon the hill side--and directly after I heard the crash and shout of our beaters, as they plunged into the thicket at its westward end. So far as I could perceive, all had gone well. Two sides, my own eyes told me, were surrounded, and the continuous line in which the shouts ran all along the farther end, would have a.s.sured me, if a.s.surance had been needful, for Tom himself commanded in that quarter, that all was perfectly secure on that side. A Jerseyman, a hunter of no small repute, had been detached with a fourth band to guard the open fields upon the north; due time had been allotted to him, and, as we judged, he was upon his ground. Scarce had the first yell echoed through the forest before the pattering of many feet might be heard, mingled with the rustling of the matted boughs throughout the covert--and as the beaters came on, a whole host of rabbits, with no less than seven foxes, two of them gray, came scampering through our line in mortal terror; but on they went unharmed, for strict had been the orders that no shot should be fired, save at the lawful objects of the chase. Just at this moment I saw Garry, who stood a hundred feet above me on the hill, commanding the whole basin of the swamp, bring up his rifle. This was enough for me--my thumb was on the c.o.c.k, the nail of my forefinger pressed closely on the trigger-guard. He lowered it again, as though he had lost sight of his object--raised it again with great rapidity, and fired. My eye was on the muzzle of his piece, and just as the bright stream of flame glanced from it, distinctly visible in the dim of morning twilight, before my ear had caught the sound of the report, a sharp long snarl rose from the thicket, announcing that a wolf was wounded. Eagerly, keenly did I listen; but there came no further sound to tell me of his whereabouts.

"'I hit him,' shouted Garry, 'I hit him then, I swon; but I guess not so badly, but he can travel still. Look out you, Archer, he's squatted in the thick there, and won't stir 'till they get close a top on him.'

"While he was speaking yet, a loud and startling shout arose from the open field, announcing to my ear upon the instant that one or more had broken covert at some unguarded spot, as it was evident from the absence of any firing. The leader of our squad was clearly of the same opinion; for, motioning to us to spread our line a little wider, he galloped off at a tremendous rate, spurning the s...o...b..a.l.l.s high into the air, accompanied by three of his best men, to stop the gap which had been left through the misapprehension of the Jerseyman.

"This he accomplished; but not until the great wolf, wilier than his comrades, had got off unharmed. He had not moved five minutes before a small dark b.i.t.c.h-wolf broke away through our line, at the angle furthest from my station, and drew a scattering volley from more than half our men--too rapid and too random to be deadly--though several of the b.a.l.l.s struck close about her, I thought she had got off scot free; but Jem McDaniel--whom you know--a cool, old steady hand, had held his fire, and taking a long quiet aim, lodged his ball fairly in the centre of her shoulders--over she went, and over, tearing the snow with tooth and claw in her death agony; while fancying, I suppose, that all our guns were emptied--for, by my life, I think the crafty brutes can almost reason-- out popped two more! one between me and my right hand man--the other, a large dog, dragging a wounded leg behind him, under my horse's very feet. Bob made a curious demi-volte, I do a.s.sure you, as the dark brindled villain darted between his fore legs with an angry snarl; but at a single word and slight admonition of the curb, stood motionless as though he had been carved in marble. Quickly I brought my rifle up, though steadily enough, and--more, I fancy, by good luck than management--planted my bullet in the neck, just where the skull and spine unite, so that he bounced three feet at least above the frozen snow, and fell quite dead, within twelve paces of the covert. The other wolf, which had crept out to my right hand, was welcomed by the almost simultaneous fire of three pieces, one of which only lodged its bullet, a small one by the way--eighty or ninety only to the pound--too light entirely to tell a story, in the brute's loins.

"He gave a savage yell enough as the shot told; and, for the first twenty or thirty yards, dragged his hind quarters heavily; but, as he went on, he recovered, gathering headway very rapidly over the little ridge, and through the open woodland, toward a clear field on the mountain's brow. Just as this pa.s.sed, a dozen shots were fired, in a quick running volley, from the thicket, just where an old cart-way divides it; followed, after a moment's pause, by one full, round report, which I knew instantly to be the voice of old Tom's musket; nor did I err, for, while its echoes were yet vocal in the leafless forest, the owner's jovial shout was heard--

"'Wiped all your eyes, boys! all of them, by the Etarnal!--Who-whoop for our side!--and I'll bet horns for all on us, old leather-breeches has killed his'n.'

"This pa.s.sed so rapidly--in fact it was all nearly simultaneous--that the fourth wolf was yet in sight, when the last shot was fired. We all knew well enough that the main object of our chase had for the time escaped us!--the game was all afoot!--three of them slain already; nor was there any longer aught to be gained by sticking to our stations. So, more for deviltry than from entertaining any real hope of overtaking him, I chucked my rifle to the nearest of the farmers, touched old Bob with the spur, and went away on a hard gallop after the wounded fugitive, who was now plodding onward at the usual long loping canter of his tribe. For about half a mile the wood was open, and sloped gently upward, until it joined the open country, where it was bounded by a high rugged fence, made in the usual snake fashion, with a huge heavy top-rail. This we soon reached; the wolf, which was more hurt than I had fancied, beginning to lag grievously, crept through it scarcely a hundred yards ahead of me, and, by good luck, at a spot where the top rail had been partially dislodged, so that Bob swept over it, almost without an effort, in his gallop; though it presented an impenetrable rampart to some half dozen of the hors.e.m.e.n who had followed. I was now in a cleared lot of some ten acres, forming the summit of the hill, which, farther on, sunk steeply into a dark ravine full of thick brushwood, with a small verge of thinly growing coppice not more than twenty yards in width, on tolerably level ground, within the low stone-wall which parted it from the cultivated land. I felt that I was now upon my vantage ground; and you may be sure, Frank, that I spared not the spurs; but the wolf, conscious probably of the vicinity of some place of safety, strained every nerve and ran, in fact, as if he had been almost unwounded; so that he was still twelve or fourteen paces from me when he jumped on the wall.

"Once over this, I well knew he was safe; for I was thoroughly acquainted with the ground, and was of course aware that no horse could descend the banks of the precipitous ravine. In this predicament, I thought I might as well take a chance at him with one of my good pistols, though of course with faint hopes of touching him. However, I pulled out the right hand nine-inch barrel, took a quick sight, and let drive at him; and, much to my delight, the sound was answered by the long snarling howl, which I had that day heard too often to doubt any more its meaning. Over he jumped, however, and the wall covering him from my sight, I had no means of judging how badly he was hurt; so on I went, and charged the wall with a tight rein, and a steady pull; and lucky for me was it, that I had a steady pull; for under the lee of the wall there was a heap of rugged logs into which Bob plunged gallantly, and, in spite of my hard hold on him, floundered a moment, and went over. Had I been going at top speed, a very nasty fall must have been the immediate consequence--as it was, both of us rolled over; but with small violence, and on soft snow, so that no harm was done.

"As I came off, however, I found myself in a most unpleasant neighborhood; for my good friend the wolf, hurt pretty badly by the last shot, had, as it seemed, ensconced himself among the logs, whence Bob's a.s.sault and subsequent discomfiture had somewhat suddenly dislodged him; so that, as I rolled over on the snow, I found myself within six feet of my friend, seemingly very doubtful whether to fight or fly! But, by good luck, my bullet had struck him on the hip-bone, and being of a rather large calibre, had let his claret pretty freely loose, besides shattering the bone, so that he was but in poor fighting trim; and I had time to get back to the gray--who stood snorting and panting, up to his knees in snow and rubbish, but without offering to stir--to draw my second pistol, and to give Isegrin--as the Germans call him--the coup de grace, before he could attain the friendly shelter of the dingle, to which with all due speed he was retreating. By this time all our comrades had a.s.sembled. Loud was the glee--boisterous the applause, which fell especially to me, who had performed with my own hand the glorious feat of slaying two wolves in one morning; and deep the cups of applejack, Scotch whiskey, and Jamaica spirits, which flowed in rich libations, according to the tastes of the compotators, over the slaughtered quarry.

"Breakfast was produced on the spot; cold salt pork, onions, and hard biscuit forming the princ.i.p.al dishes, washed down by nothing weaker than the pure ardent! Not long, however, did fat Tom permit us to enjoy our ease.

"'Come, boys," he shouted, "no lazin' here; no gormandizin'--the worst part of our work's afore us; the old lame devil is afoot, and five miles off by now. We must get back, and lay the hounds on, right stret off-- and well if the scent an't cold now! He's tuk right off toward Duckcedars'--for so Tom ever calls Truxedo Pond--a lovely crescent-shaped lakelet deep in the bosom of the Greenwoods--'so off with you, Jem, down by the road, as hard as you can strick with ten of your boys in sleighs, and half the hounds; and if you find his tracks acrost the road, don't wait for us, but stick right arter him. You, Garry, keep stret down the old road with ten dogs and all the plunder-- we'll meet at night, I reckon.'

"No sooner said than done! the parties were sent off with the relays.

This was on Monday morning--Tom and I, and some thirteen others, with eight couple of the best dogs, stuck to his slot on foot. It was two hours at least, so long had he been gone, before a single hound spoke to it, and I had begun well nigh to despair; but Tom's immense sagacity, which seemed almost to know instinctively the course of the wily savage, enabling us to cut off the angles of his course, at last brought us up somewhat nearer to him. At about noon, two or three of the hounds opened, but doubtfully and faintly. His slot, however, showed that they were right, and l.u.s.tily we cheered them on! Tom, marvelling the while that we heard not the cry of Jem's relay.

"'For I'll be darned,' he said, 'if he hasn't crossed the road long enough since; and that dumb n.i.g.g.e.r, Jem's not had the sense to stick to him!'

"For once, however, the fat man was wrong; for, as it appeared when we neared the road, the wolf had headed back, scared doubtless by some injudicious noise of our companions, and making a wide ring, had crossed three miles below the spot where Jem was posted. This circuit we were forced to make, as at first sight we fancied he had headed altogether back, and it was four o'clock before we got upon his scent, hot, fresh, and breast-high; running toward the road, that is, due eastward from the covert whence he had bolted in the morning. Nor were our friends inactive; for, guided by the clamors of our pack, making the forest musical, they now held down the road; and, as the felon crossed, caught a long view of him as he limped over it, and laid the fresh hounds on.

"A brilliant rally followed--we calling off our wearied dogs, and hasting to the lower road, where we found Garry with the sleighs, and dashing off in our turn through all sorts of by-paths and wood-roads to head them once again! This, with much labor, we effected; but the full winter-moon had risen, and the innumerable stars were sparkling in the frosty skies, when we flogged off the hounds--kindled our night fires-- prepared our evening meal, feasted, and spread our blankets, and slept soundly under no warmer canopy than the blue firmament--secure that our lame friend would lie up for the night at no great distance. With the first peep of dawn we were again afoot, and, the snow still befriending us, we roused him from a cedar-brake at about nine o'clock, cut him off three times with fresh dogs and men, the second day, and pa.s.sed the night, some sixteen miles from home, in the rude hovel of a charcoal burner.

"Greater excitement I cannot imagine, than that wild, independent chase!--sometimes on foot, cheering the hounds through swamp and dingle, over rough cliffs and ledges where foot of horse could avail nothing.

Sometimes on horseback, galloping merrily through the more open woodlands. Sometimes careering in the flying sleigh, to the gay music of its bells, along the wild wood-paths! Well did we fare, too--ay, sumptuously!--for our outskirters, though they reserved their rifles for the appropriate game, were not so sparing with the shot-gun; so that, night after night, our chaldron reeked with the mingled steam of rabbit, quail, and partridge, seethed up a la Meg Merrilies, with fat pork, onions, and potatoes--by the Lord Harry! Frank, a glorious and unmatched consummee.

"To make, however, a long tale short--for every day's work, although varied to the actors by thousands of minute but unnarratable particulars, would appear but as a repet.i.tion of the last, to the mere listener--to make a long tale short, on the third day he doubled back, took us directly over the same ground--and in the middle of the day, on Sat.u.r.day, was roused in view by the leading hounds, from the same little swamp in which the five had harbored during the early winter. No man was near the hounds when he broke covert. But fat Tom, who had been detached from the party to bring up provisions from the village, was driving in his sleigh steadily along the road, when the sharp chorus of the hounds aroused him. A minute after, the lame scoundrel limped across the turnpike, scant thirty yards before him. Alas! Tom had but his double-barrel, one loaded with buck shot, the other merely prepared for partridge--he blazed away, however, but in vain! Out came ten couple on his track, hard after him; and old Tom, cursing his bad luck, stood to survey the chase across the open.

"Strange was the felon's fate! The first fence, after he had crossed the road, was full six feet in height, framed of huge split logs, piled so close together that, save between the two topmost rails, a small dog even could have found no pa.s.sage. Full at this opening the wolf dashed, as fresh, Tom said, as though he had not run a yard; but as he struggled through it, his efforts shook the top rails from the yokes, and the huge piece of timber falling across his loins, pinned him completely! At a mile off I heard his howl myself, and the confused and savage hubbub, as the hounds front and rear, a.s.sailed him.

"Hampered although he was, he battled it out fiercely--ay, heroically-- as six of our best hounds maimed for life, and one slain outright, testified.

"Heavens! how the fat man scrambled across the fence! he reached the spot, and, far too much excited to reload his piece and quietly blow out the fierce brute's brains, fell to belaboring him about the head with his gun-stock, shouting the while and yelling; so that the din of his tongue, mixed with the snarls and long howls of the mangled savage, and the fierce baying of the dogs, fairly alarmed me, as I said before, at a mile's distance.

"As it chanced, Timothy was on the road close by, with Peac.o.c.k; I caught sight of him, mounted, and spurred on fiercely to the rescue; but when I reached the hill's brow, all was over. Tom, puffing and panting like a grampus in shoal water, covered--garments and face and hands--with lupine gore, had finished his huge enemy, after he had destroyed his gun, with what he called a stick, but what you and I, Frank, should term a fair-sized tree; and with his foot upon the brindled monster's neck was quaffing copious rapture from the neck of a quart bottle--once full, but now well nigh exhausted--of his appropriate and cherished beverage.*

[*The facts and incidents of the lame wolf's death are strictly true, although they were not witnessed by the writer.] Thus fell the last wolf on the Hills of Warwick!

"There, I have finished my yarn, and in good time," cried Harry, "for here we are at the bridge, and in five minutes more we shall be at old Tom's door."

"A right good yarn!" said Forester; "and right well spun, upon my word."

"But is it a yarn?" asked A---, "or is it intended to be the truth?"

"Oh! the truth," laughed Frank, "the truth, as much as Archer can tell the truth; embellished, you understand, embellished!"

"The truth, strictly," answered Harry, quietly--"the truth not embellished. When I tell personal adventures, I am not in the habit of decorating them with falsehood."

"I had no idea," responded the Commodore, "that there had been any wolves here so recently."

"There are wolves here now," said Archer, "though they are scarce and wary. It was but last year that I rode down over the back-bone of the mountain, on the Pompton road, in the nighttime, and that on the third of July, and one fellow followed me along the road till I got quite down into the cultivated country."

"The devil he did!"

"How did you know he was following you?" exclaimed Frank and the Commodore, almost in a breath.

"Did you see him?"

"Not I--but I heard him howl half a dozen times, and each time nearer than before. When I got out of the hills he was not six hundred yards behind me."

"Pleasant, that! Were you armed? What did you do?"

"It was not really so unpleasant, after all--for I knew that he would not attack me at that season of the year. I had my pistols in my holsters; and for the rest, I jogged steadily along, taking care to keep my nag in good wind for a spirt, if it should be needed. I knew that for three or four miles I could outrun him, if it should come to the worst, though in the end a wolf can run down the fastest horse; and, as every mile brought me nearer to the settlement, I did not care much about it.

Had it been winter, when the brutes are hard pressed for food, and the deep snows are against a horse's speed, it would be a very different thing. Hurrah! here we are! Hurrah! fat Tom! ahoy! a-ho-oy!"

THE SUPPER PARTY

Blithe, loud and hearty was the welcome of fat Tom, when by the clear view halloa with which Harry drove up to the door at a spanking trot, the horses stopping willingly at the high well-known stoop, he learned who were these his nocturnal visitors. There was a slight tinge of frostiness in the evening air, and a bright blazing fire filled the whole bar-room with a cheerful merry light, and cast a long stream of red l.u.s.tre from the tall windows, and half-open doorway, but in an instant all that escaped from the last mentioned aperture was totally obstructed, as if the door had been pushed to, by the huge body of mine host.

"Why, darn it," he exclaimed, "if that beant Archer! and a hull grist of boys he's brought along with him, too, any how. How are you, Harry, who've you got along? It's so etarnal thunderin' dark as I carnt see 'em no how!"

"Frank and the Commodore, that's all," Archer replied, "and how are you, old Corporation?"

"Oh! oh! I'm most darned glad as you've brought A---; you might have left that other critter to home, though, jest as well--we doosn't want him blowin' out his little hide here; lazin' about, and doin' nothin'

day nor night but eat and grumble; and drink, and drink, as if he'd got a meal-sack in his little guts. Why, Timothy, how be you?" he concluded, smiting him on the back a downright blow, that would have almost felled an ox, as he was getting out the baggage.

"Doant thee noo, Measter Draa," expostulated Tim, "behaave thyself, man, or Ay'se give thee soomat thou woant loike, I'm thinking. Noo! send oot yan o' t' nagers, joost to stand till t' nags till Ay lift oot t'

boxes!"